Friday, April 29, 2016

"Cecil's Pride: The True Story of a Lion King" was written by Craig Hatkoff and his two daughters, Juliana and Isabella. While the barrage of coverage Cecil received last summer focused on his death, Hatkoff told The Dodo he was more interested in what came before it.

Cecil and a lioness

"Cecil's death was a very dark moment that tapped into a zeitgeist of anger about our endangered species, and indeed our planet as a whole," Hatkoff said. "The whole world knew how Cecil died; we wanted to tell the story about how Cecil lived."

cubs

In order to do that, Hatkoff reached out to the people who studied Cecil's pride at Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park.

We found Cecil's 'biographer,' researcher Brent Stapelkamp, who kept watch over Cecil for nine years," Hatkoff explained. "Brent had also taken stunning photographs of Cecil that we were able to use throughout the book."

oh my God

The images illustrate the complexities of the relationships between the lions in the pride.

One relationship that stood out was that of Cecil and Jericho, an unrelated male who eventually became the coleader of Cecil's pride. Instead of fighting each other for the seat as the dominant male, the lions decided to work together — a dynamic that persisted even after Cecil's death.

Jericho and Cecil

"There was a big concern by researchers that, after Cecil's death, Jericho would likely kill or abandon Cecil's cubs," Hatkoff said. "Instead Jericho has been raising them as his own for the past nine months. It was like the 'Lion King' story except Scar, Simba's evil uncle, turns out to be the good guy and saves the day."

Jericho and the step-cubs

I don't want to ruin the story by discussing the creep who killed that magnificent beast for no good reason. Or mention that Donald Trump's sons are also bloodthirsty big game killers who like to pose with dead African lions, elephants and others. It just. needs. to. stop.